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From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

From Poverty to Power Green, Oxfam 2008 - weman

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FROM POVERTY TO POWERAN ECONOMICS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRSTCENTURYA day spent in a village or shanty <strong>to</strong>wn in the developing world rapidlydispels any notion that people might be poor because they are work-shy.Women rise early <strong>to</strong> prepare food and get children ready for school,often before heading out <strong>to</strong> their own paid work in offices, markets, oras cleaners and cooks. Men labour in construction or as porters ofgoods or people. In the countryside, farming and agricultural labourdemand long hours of back-breaking <strong>to</strong>il in harsh conditions.Despite all this effort, and the huge wealth generated by the globaleconomy, hundreds of millions of men and women remain desperatelypoor. Why? This section seeks an answer by exploring the nature ofmarkets – the web of economic interactions that binds individuals,communities, and nations <strong>to</strong>gether. At their best, markets are mightyengines, generating wealth and transforming the lives and expectationsof people throughout society.At their worst, they exclude poorpeople, exacerbate inequality, and degrade the natural world on whichwe all depend.The problem is not with markets per se – Amartya Sen onceremarked that ‘To be generically against markets would be almost asodd as being generically against conversation’ 1 – but with the rulesand institutions that govern them. The impact of markets on povertyand inequality depends on whether poor people can exert influenceover the way they operate. When small producers, farmers, or workers108

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